THE WAR IN GAZA

@okie,

Likud does not recognize the Palestinians' right to their own state where they are currently living, Hamas does not recognize the Israelis' right to their own state where they are currently living.

You're right, Israel, as a state, is recognized by most other countries. The Palestinians have no such privilege - in part because Israel has successfully prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state, while the Palestinians largely failed in preventing the establishment of Israel.

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@old europe,

I could be wrong, but refesh my memory, did not the Palestinians have the option of having a state in the late 40's when this whole thing was set up?

And another point, I recall negotiations wherein Israel offered a state to the Palestinians in an effort to make peace a few years ago, and it was turned down by the Palestinians. I believe Bush was angling for that, and I think it was a distinct possibility, but it was rejected by the Palestinians. I could be wrong on these points, I will need to brush up on all of this.

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@okie,

Yes.

And Hamas Not Equal

The Palestinians.

You gave one example on the Palestinian side, and then asked George to find something equivalent on the Israeli side. Specifically, your question was

okie wrote:

And if you can find any evidence of the same with the government of Israel, let me know?

I've posted evidence, but now you're making all kinds of excuses why an Israeli party is justified in denying the Palestinians their own state and in claiming they have the right to annex Palestinian territory.

Fair enough. However, you certainly realize that people who support Hamas will be able to come up with similar excuses for the part of the Hamas charter that says Israelis have no right to a state on the current territory.

The problem is that there are people on both sides who don't want peace and coexistence, but simply want all of the territory for themselves.

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George, you are a big liar. Israel has begged the Pals to negotiate in good faith, which the Pals rejected time and again. At Camp David, Clinton negotiated a deal in which the Pals got about everything they demanded. Arafat walked, saying that his Pals would murder him were he to accept. Shortly after that, he unleashed intifada on Israel. Interestingly, he probably would have been murdered. This happened to the former leader of Jordan and, later, the president of Egypt.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

oe, your examples are not the same, Israel does not advocate the extermination of any existing state, that I know of.

Oh I see. Israel doesn't advocate the extermination od any existing state !~! Laughing

Since the Palestinians aren't regarded by the Israelis of having an "existing state" they, of course, can be exterminated.

Okie are you aware of the sophistry involved in your endlessly modified positions as, piece by piece the foundations for them are exposed as fraudulent??

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@georgeob1,

Israel is sure doing a lousy extermination job. The Pal population has exploded over the years.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

For about 42 years now the Israelis have limited or restricted any dialogue or negoitiations with the Palestinians, during which time they have seized and taken over more than half of the territory of the former West Bank, making of it an exclusively Jewish zone.

Do not tell me you do not know the history of the "ten lost tribes"? They were not lost. They were sold into slavery in Babylonia, since the northern part of Israel was cut-off from the southern part of Israel. The High Priest tribe (koans) told the Babylonians that if they can stay in the southern part of Israel with their Levite tribe (helpers in the temple), the ten tribes in the northern half of Israel can be taken. That is the story I heard. Anyway, that means that the hour glass shape of Israel is too narrow at the middle to defend. So, when in 1967 the west bank was occupied, it was an opportunity to end that strategic weakness.

But, I would not think that accounts for much in everyone's analysis.

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@Advocate,

Scum

(that's the only word i can think of)

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@old europe,

old europe wrote:

You're right, Israel, as a state, is recognized by most other countries. The Palestinians have no such privilege - in part because Israel has successfully prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state, while the Palestinians largely failed in preventing the establishment of Israel.

You might just be pointing out that the early bird catches the worm, so to speak. Jews have had a focal point with Israel for over three millienia. They have had the Zionist movement since the late 19th century, or thereabouts. The Palestineans only got a collective identity when? Sometime after WWI, when the Ottoman Empire vanished?

The Palestineans are the same Arabs that came off of the Arabian Peninsula and conquered north Africa and other parts of the Middle East. The Middle East is not like Europe where different countries have different historical pasts, with different peoples in each country.

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@Foofie,

No, I don't think that a mythical "focal point with Israel" made the Zionists more apt at creating a nation than the Palestinians.

I rather think it has to do with the fact that Israel had a lot of support from Western nations after its creation (and I'm sure you will be quick to point out that this was due to the guilt complex of Western countries for allowing and profiting from the Holocaust), whereas Palestinians, while being useful as a pawn in the political game Arab countries were playing with Israel, never really had any outside support on par with Israel.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

The simple facts of Israel's behavior over the years since 1967 make it pretty clear that Israel is committed to the extermination of the Palestinians and of any semblance of political independence for them. How do you deal with that simple fact???????

It appears that you are interpreting "simple facts," but not identifying what these facts are? What are you basing the conclusion that there is a committment to extermination? It appears you have come to some conclusions without backing them up for the reader. Are you, in effect, saying, "Trust me!"?

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CHOMSKY: It's a tragedy which is made right here. The press won't talk about it and even scholarship, for the most part, won't talk about it but the fact of the matter is that there has been a political settlement on the table, on the agenda for 30 years. Namely a two-state settlement on the international borders with maybe some mutual modification of the border. That's been there officially since 1976 when there was a Security Council resolution proposed by the major Arab states and supported by the (Palestinan Liberation Organization) PLO, pretty much in those terms. The United States vetoed it so it's therefore out of history and it's continued almost without change since then.

There was in fact one significant modification. In the last month of Clinton's term, January 2001 there were negotiations, which the U.S. authorized, but didn't participate in, between Israel and the Palestinians and they came very close to agreement.

DOSSANI: The Taba negotiations?

Yes, the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to agreement. They were called off by Israel. But that was the one week in over 30 years when the United States and Israel abandoned their rejectionist position. It's a real tribute to the media and other commentators that they can keep this quiet. The U.S. and Israel are alone in this. The international consensus includes virtually everyone. It includes the Arab League which has gone beyond that position and called for the normalization of relations, it includes Hamas. Every time you see Hamas in the newspapers, it says "Iranian-backed Hamas which wants to destroy Israel." Try to find a phrase that says "democratically elected Hamas which is calling for a two-state settlement" and has been for years. Well, yeah, that's a good propaganda system. Even in the U.S. press they've occasionally allowed op-eds by Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniya and others saying, yes we want a two-state settlement on the international border like everyone else.

DOSSANI: When did Hamas adopt that position?

CHOMSKY That's their official position taken by Haniya, the elected leader, and Khalid Mesh'al, their political leader who's in exile in Syria, he's written the same thing. And it's over and over again. There's no question about it but the West doesn't want to hear it.

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20090116.htm

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

For about 42 years now the Israelis have limited or restricted any dialogue or negoitiations with the Palestinians, during which time they have seized and taken over more than half of the territory of the former West Bank, making of it an exclusively Jewish zone.

.... Anyway, that means that the hour glass shape of Israel is too narrow at the middle to defend. So, when in 1967 the west bank was occupied, it was an opportunity to end that strategic weakness.

But, I would not think that accounts for much in everyone's analysis.

That argument would actually have some merit if it were not for the fact that Israel has - for over forty years - refused to grant ANY political rights whatever to the population of the territory it seized. Instead it has engaged in a form of steady almost inexorable ethnic cleansing of areas of the West Bank coveted by Zionists, both those within and without the governing Israeli political establishment. Moreover this program has been articulated rather plainly in the political manifestos of major Israeli political parties - the Likud prominently among them.

Israel is hardly unique in all of this -- there was a mass emigration (oe expulsion) of Germans from areas they had long occupied in Czechoslovakia and in the then expandes western borders of Poland immediately following WWII, and it entailed substantial suffering on those so evicted. That, however was a consequence of issues that arose during two world wars and the actions of the Hitler regine. Apart from defending their own territory, the Palestinians are guilty of no such offenses.

I would have no objection whatever to Israeli seizure of the whole West Bank territory. However, in keeping with all of the principals of modern political life, I would insist that Israel grant political rights to the people forcibly incorporated into their country exactly equal to those of ordinary Israeli citizens.

Israel has steadfastly refused to consider such a solution, and insteads hides behind the synthetic facade of Palestinian hostility and intransigence - all while steadily expropriating the territory of the Palestinians and restricting them to ever smaller and ever more isolated cantonments within it. The most accurate term in modern political vocabulary to dfescribe this situation comes from the former regime in South Africa -- Apartheidt. The world justifiably condemned the old regime in South Africa for this practice and the repugnant ideas behind it, and the world increasingly condemns Israel for exactly the same reasons.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Oh I see. Israel doesn't advocate the extermination od any existing state !~!

Go ahead and laugh, but a correct statement, one that cannot be said for Hamas.

Quote:

Since the Palestinians aren't regarded by the Israelis of having an "existing state" they, of course, can be exterminated.

They are not being exterminated. Some are being killed in war actions as a result of their own attacks upon Israel. Blame Hamas, etc., and the Palestinians, George, where the blame belongs.

Quote:

Okie are you aware of the sophistry involved in your endlessly modified positions as, piece by piece the foundations for them are exposed as fraudulent??

I have not modified any of my positions that I am aware of, in regard to Israel and Hamas. If you can point out where I have, you are welcome.

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@okie,

are you people pretending to be blindly stupid - or are you really blindly stupid?

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Israel seized a group of top Hamas officials who were visiting the WB. Since Hamas feels justified in killing and kidnapping Israelis in Israel, this seems quite fair, and will hopefully pressure Hamas to arrange the release of Schlit (if he is still alive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7952240.stm

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@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

Israel seized a group of top Hamas officials who were visiting the WB. Since Hamas feels justified in killing and kidnapping Israelis in Israel, this seems quite fair, and will hopefully pressure Hamas to arrange the release of Schlit (if he is still alive.

Well, when you read the reports where Israeli soldiers describe the wanton killings in Gaza ... one even can be glad that nothing more severe happened.

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@Walter Hinteler,

What nonsense! You know damn well that Israel went to great lengths to avoid unnecessary civilian deaths. You must be a Jew-hater.

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@Advocate,

So it's not true what has been published by Haaretz, JP, Israel army radio ... papers?

Quote:

[...]"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?

"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... This also scared me a bit. I tried to exert some influence, insofar as is possible from within my subordinate position, to change this. In the end the specification involved going into a house, operating megaphones and telling [the tenants]: 'Come on, everyone get out, you have five minutes, leave the house, anyone who doesn't get out gets killed.'[...]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

"There was a huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out. The Education Corps published a pamphlet for commanders - something about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present. The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war. From my position as a commander and 'explainer,' I attempted to talk about the politics - the streams in Palestinian society, about how not everyone who is in Gaza is Hamas, and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us. I wanted to explain to the soldiers that this war is not a war for the sanctification of the holy name, but rather one to stop the Qassams."

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THE WAR IN GAZA

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